Episode 40: Interview with Jenny Thomasson AIFD, PFCI, EMC of Jenny T Floristry
Lori sums up Jenny Thomasson in one line: she's a big deal who doesn't act like a big deal. Lori once watched her captivate a room of designers and shop owners at a Texas State Floral Association event — passing whimsical, museum-worthy pieces through the audience and offering advice Lori never forgot: always keep one "wow" piece in your shop window or entry, even if nobody buys it, because intrigue draws people in. In this episode, Vonda sits down with her longtime friend — a member of AIFD, PFCI, and holder of the European Master Certification — for a conversation about creativity, evolution, and building a brand around who you really are.
Building Jenny T Floristry
Jenny was a shop owner at a very young age, but about five years ago she had a realization: she wasn't going to be her shop forever. Her shop was what she built — it wasn't who she was. So she searched for her own name as a domain, found jennytfloristry.com available, bought it, and waited — building the concept slowly and organically. Today it spans Teleflora education specialist presentations around the country, speaking engagements at units and garden clubs, integration workshops that bring different creatives together to explore sculpture, and in-shop creativity workshops where she spends a couple of days with a shop's whole team.
Those in-shop workshops produce real business results. At one renowned flower shop, Jenny led a two-day sympathy workshop where the staff rebuilt their sympathy section from the ground up — leaving with 20 designs photographed, spreadsheeted at three price points, and each credited by name to the designer who created it. The owner walked in on the last day, saw the pride on his designers' faces, and booked her again for next year on the spot.
Perishable Poetics — and the symposium that started it all
Jenny's new book, Perishable Poetics: Manifesting Emotion Through Contemporary Floral Design, is the first of a planned three-book series: 45 designs across three sections (You, Me, and I), with sketches, dissections showing the construction behind each design, and deeply personal poetry paired with every piece. "If I was going to do it that way, I was going to be completely raw about it," she says. Book two — in a completely different medium — is already underway.
Vonda shares a piece of history: in 2015, when she was program chair and Marie Ackerman was symposium chair for AIFD's National Symposium, Jenny gave a main-stage presentation people still request on DVD. It was the first presentation she'd ever given — and she reveals she practiced relentlessly in her hotel room the night before, when a single change of inflection in her opening line transformed everything: "How lucky are we? We get to do this for the rest of our lives." Her proposal, submitted a year and a half early with complete sketches of every design, is Vonda's favorite proof of the detail Jenny pours into everything.
Her business secret: slow down
Asked for a business secret, Jenny pushes back against the quarantine-era pressure to tackle a million things at once. "You can't eat the sandwich in one bite." Take one issue at a time, solve it, know where you stand, and move to the next — building blocks, in business and in creativity. Slowing down also gives you permission to explore an idea deeply enough to unlock things you'd have blown past at full speed.
Her other gift to every audience: permission to create unapologetically. No painter, no author, no designer produces a masterpiece every time — it's physically impossible. So take five minutes a day and make "a random pile of yuck" if that's what comes out, because it might spark tomorrow's idea. Her inspiration comes largely from outside sources processed internally — hazy morning colors, architecture, interior design, natural materials — and from her students, who surprise her in every workshop.
Technology, joy, and Star of Bethlehem
Jenny's biggest challenge? Technology — she can get frustrated fast, partly because she hates asking for help, and as she and Vonda laugh, designers speak in color, texture, and line, not keyboards and gigabytes. Her advice for finding more pleasure in any business: give yourself permission to spend time on what made you love the job — a sales workshop if sales lights your fire, symposium if flowers do. Vonda adds her own favorite: shop owners should take a delivery themselves now and then, just to see the joy on a recipient's face.
And her favorite flower reveals the most: Star of Bethlehem (ornithogalum). Unassuming, incredibly resilient, full of hidden blooms people throw away too soon — and at the very end of its vase life, in all its glory. It's a flower, she says, like what Vonda and Marie did for her at symposium: someone saw what was hiding in there.
Key takeaways
- You are not your shop — build a personal brand early, even if you're not ready to launch it yet.
- Keep one intriguing "art piece" on display; it doesn't need to sell to bring customers through the door.
- Slow down: one issue, one bite, one building block at a time beats trying to do everything at once.
- Create unapologetically every day — not every piece will be a masterpiece, and today's "yuck" sparks tomorrow's idea.
- Reinvest in your team's creativity: a hands-on workshop can rebuild a whole product category and restore designers' pride.
Sponsored by:
Flower Clique
Flower Clique Prep School
Real Life Retail Florist